PIZZA Hut will today introduce a blanket no-smoking policy across all of its restaurants.

The company says it has taken the decision to protect both customers and staff from the dangers of passive smoking.

Brian Rimmer, Pizza Hut's operations director for full service restaurants, said, "Pizza Hut strongly believes that families should be able to take time to have a leisurely meal in a restaurant without exposing their children to other people's smoke.

"It is equally important that our staff can work in a smoke-free environment. We feel this is a significant step forward for the UK restaurant industry and hopefully some of our competitors will follow suit in the near future."

"This will be good for staff, good for customers and good for business," she said.

"Second-hand smoke is a serious health hazard for staff in the restaurant trade and research shows that over half of all adults want to eat in smoke-free restaurants. Pizza Hut is to be congratulated for taking this initiative and starting what we believe will be a trend for restaurants in the UK to go smoke-free."